The bloodshed comes two weeks after the bodies of 45 ethnic Albanians were found in another Kosovo village. The killings broke the October cease-fire, prompting an intense round of international diplomacy and new NATO threats of military intervention.

Today the United States and five other nations called all parties in the year-old conflict to an international conference Feb. 6 to negotiate a settlement granting "substantial autonomy" - but not independence - to the majority Albanian province.

The Serb Media Center said the ethnic Albanians were slain when police entered the village of Rogovo after separatist rebels killed a policeman there early today.

The center said rebels began firing from several houses and police killed "some 20" of them in the village. Police said the dead were rebel fighters.

The Pristina office of the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe said its monitors found 23 bodies of ethnic Albanians in the village, which is two miles from the Albanian border and 45 miles southwest of Pristina, the provincial capital.

Associated Press photographers who visited the site within four hours of the raid said most of the bodies were inside the walled compound of a single family.

Three bodies lay in front of a mini-bus and another 11 were inside. Five were in a nearby shed and four were at other locations in the area. Police showed Chinese-made Kalashnikov rifles, ammunition and rebel identification cards taken from the bodies.

The OSCE said the victims were wearing civilian clothes but the photographers said some bodies were clad in parts of uniforms. Some were wearing ammunition belts.